Seven Dreams
by Red the Alien
Summary: "I am a monster." Annie whispered to herself, encased within the prison of her own Titan-flesh, "I am unforgivable. But they can't be forgiven, either…and there is something I must do. That's right…something I must do…"
1. First Dream

_A/N: This is the closest to my usual original fiction writing style…it's less narrative and more experimental, showing part of a picture so that the mind can fill in the rest…_

_The only real note that I'll give is that this piece is about Annie Leonhart (from Attack on Titan) and contains manga spoilers—so if you're anime-only, you've been warned, post-anime spoilers aboard. _

**_Dream #1:_**

In the first dream she was trapped in a room made of glass. The walls, ceiling, and floor alike were a clear, faceted, diamond-like material, encasing her in a cocoon of crystal. Sunlight poured in from all sides. She was lying on the floor of this room, which was empty except for her and a small broken-off blade. She picked up the blade and tried to hack her way out—it was to no avail. She pounded on the walls, trying to escape, but even when her fists were torn and bloody, and her knuckles black and blue, the walls showed not even the slightest hint of a crack. She threw herself against it, screaming at the top of her lungs—the wall was hard and unforgiving. "Help me!" she screamed desperately, clawing at the smooth, glassy surface, "Get me out of here! Help me!"

Then there was a sound—soft and distant at first, but drawing closer and louder, the steady pulse of a giant drum: a heartbeat. She sighed, the last scream having left her throat raw—in a way, it was a comforting sound. She picked up the blade again and started scratching at the floor. She wasn't sure what she was trying to do, at first—but the words slowly formed at her fingertips, inscribed into the crystal:

_Annie Leonhart_

_What is that? _She wondered for a moment before remembering—it was her own name. She was Annie Leonhart. She had to remember that, she couldn't lose sight of it again.

Then a stinging feeling—the words were carved into the skin of her back. She gasped from the pain. But it was over within moments—the words faded from the crystal surface as well. The prison was her own flesh, her own body: that of a Titan.

_I am a monster. _she whispered to herself, _I am unforgivable. But they can't be forgiven, either…and there is something I must do._

_That's right…something I must do…_


	2. Second Dream

_**Dream #2:**_

The second dream was a jumble of disconnected images and sounds, random sensations with no particular rhyme or reason to them: the sting of a needle piercing the flesh of her neck; her little brother, William, playing by the riverbank, sparring with an imaginary opponent with a twig for a sword and a broken-off board for a shield; her mother screaming her name—her name, her name! it was her name, she had to remember that, she couldn't forget again—and sudden silence; a roaring fire that each of her friends, one by one, dove headfirst into. There was no sense to most of it, it was nothing but a torrent of thoughts, feelings, and memories, blended into one—but behind that random stream, there was one thing that was consistent: her regret.

She, too, dove into the flame—her body melted away like ice. And then she was nothing, her existence one with those flames, blazing through everything that existed until nothing was left to burn, and then emptiness.


	3. Third Dream

**_Dream #3:_**

The third dream was a memory: the smells of clean sheets, heated iron, grief, and damp earth—before her eyes had opened, these smells were the first thing she was aware of. She felt the metallic surface of the shackles at her wrists and ankles, the cotton sheets over the thin mattress she lay on, a cool compress on her forehead, a pair of hands smoothing her hair. Slowly, she opened her eyes, and the face of the person sitting next to her came into focus. It took her a moment to connect the face to a memory, and the memory to a name. "Bertolt? What happened? Where am I?"

His expression was dark. "You don't remember what happened, Annie?"

_Annie…who's Annie? Oh, right, it's me…Annie Leonhart is my name…I have to remember that…_

"I don't remember anything." It was the truth. "Where are we? Why are we here?"

"Look around you, Annie. Do you remember what this place is?"

She shot a quick glance around the room. Her wrists and ankles were cuffed in heavy iron shackles, which, in turn, were bolted by chains to the ground. She was lying on a thin mattress braced on a wooden bed frame. Bertolt was sitting on the edge of the bed. Past Bertolt, she could see the stony walls, close on all sides, confining her to the cell. The door was made of iron bars. A narrow shaft of light perspired through the bars from the torchlit corridor outside.

"The Cave," she said at last, "We're in the Cave."

The Cave was the secret prison for experiments gone wrong. She'd been down here once before—it was where her father had given her the injection. She hated it there—the walls reeked of death, as though all of the souls that had perished here had seeped into the very foundation of the prison, leaving behind a scent that burned her eyes.

Bertolt nodded, brushing her hair out of her face. "I told them you wouldn't be dangerous anymore after you woke up…but it wasn't up to me that you got locked in here." He sighed. "Then again, this time…nobody could know."

Annie didn't even need to ask what had happened. She had tried, again, to control her Titan form, and failed. "How bad was it, this time?"

Bertolt examined a crack on the wall, silently, for a moment. Then, still not meeting her eyes, he said: "There's a reason that this time, they had to lock you up down here, and couldn't just let you stay in the woods…"

"Why? What happened? Did someone get hurt this time?"

Bertolt was still avoiding eye contact. "Well, they tried to stop you from going back towards the village, but…it was no use, they couldn't control you…by the time Marcel and Reiner got there to restrain you, it was too late."

A growing sense of dread gnawed at her stomach. "How many people…"

"A total of five dead. A couple more injured."

"Well, it could've been worse, right?" Annie sighed, hating herself for how calm she sounded. "I mean, Reiner and Marcel must have been really fast, to stop me there—"

"Annie, do you even want to know who got killed?"

"You know—"

"These are the people who were eaten before Reiner took you down…I have to tell you because you'd hear it somewhere else if I didn't…" Bertolt paused, taking a deep breath. "I know you didn't want to. It wasn't your fault. But people will blame you. I don't. But people will." He fiddled with the edge of the sheet. "Darrel Bernstook. Matthias Schrieber. Lisbeth Davier." His voice grew shaky. "Brenda Leonhart. William Leonhart. Brenda—your mother—tried to get between you and your brother, she was screaming, trying to get you to wake up and recognize her…it was no good. She died first, then William." Bertolt reached out shakily to pat Annie on the shoulder. "I'm sorry, Annie."

The last two names took a moment to sink in. "What?" Her voice was flat, emotionless. "Mom's dead? And William?"

"Annie—"

Annie screamed, yanking against the chains that bound her to the spot. When they didn't give, she pulled herself up just enough to smash her head against the wall, and again and again, screaming at the top of her lungs. The rest was a blur—running feet—a needle—a voice, her father's, cold and distant: "Another failure…she must control her emotions…if she gets too emotional, we're better off trying a different test subject…"

Another voice: "What about her?"

"If she fails again…we terminate."

Those were the last words she heard before the sedatives she'd been injected with took effect, and she was swept into darkness.

But it was all another dream, another memory. So there was no blissful numb at the end; only another dream, this one almost equally painful to the one that preceded it.


	4. Fourth Dream

This time, a series of memories, jumbled in rapid-fire.

_Control your emotions._

His voice—her father's—as cold and distant as always. Had he not just lost his wife and his son, coffins empty because their bodies had been devoured? Had he not created the monster that killed them? How could he still be so indifferent?

_Control your emotions._

A deep breath, empty heart, empty mind. _I begin as nothing. If I allow myself to feel anything, then those feelings become my actions, and I cannot control what I become. _Another deep breath, and with its release, she was nothing, and nobody. There was no Annie Leonhart, no innocent little brother, no concerned but loving mother, no indifferent father—there were no friends, no family, no village—no meaning—no name—only a mission.

_I must control myself._

Her body surging with heat. _So much heat…if I move, I might catch fire._ It was a foreign body, but her mind existed within it—fifteen meters tall, burning, powerful. A heartbeat against a hardened surface. Her heartbeat.

"Can you hear me, Female Titan?"

_I am the Female Titan. I must control my emotions, or I cannot control it._

She nodded and knelt her Titan-body down next to the man who sat on the raised platform. She couldn't speak, but she could hear him. "Good." The man on the platform was, for the time being, nothing and nobody—he wasn't her father, or her enemy, or her creator: he was nothing except the voice that she had to obey. "We are making progress now."

_Control your emotions._

And then, back in her own body, back in Annie Leonhart's body—_that is my name, I have to remember that, or I'll be found out—_running across the field outside of Wall Maria, just meters ahead of Bertolt, Reiner, and Marcel—there was a scream. A blunt force slammed into her side—it was Reiner, who had been shoved by Marcel—and at that moment, a gigantic body, seven meters tall, dark hair, a mouth of razor-sharp teeth, crushing Marcel—a voice, a jumble of voices—"Marcel! NO!" "Go on without me! Run, now!" "Marcel? MARCEL!"

She raised her finger to her mouth, ready to bite it—but it was Bertolt who stopped her—"Annie, we've got to run! If we transform here, it's all over! I'm sorry, but we've got to keep going without him!" Bertolt's voice was astonishingly calm as he grabbed her arm and dragged both her and Reiner away into the trees at a full sprint.

_How can you be so calm?_

Within the walls, they had new names, a new identity, a new purpose. _Forget who you were, on the outside…here, we have a mission…only us…_

A mission. That's right, something they must do.

_Control your emotions, Female Titan._

_I'm sorry. Maybe Annie Leonhart can control her emotions, no matter what…maybe the Female Titan can keep herself controlled…but I cannot control this._


	5. Fifth Dream

There was fire; the world was burning. It was a world she'd come to know, a world she'd lived in for five years now, a world she'd almost come to care for. She was surrounded by people who called her a comrade, who fought side-by-side with her; who had shared meals and training and living space with her for years now, but had never seen her for what she truly was, and who would never call her a comrade if they could see it.

_I am a monster. I am unforgivable. If you could see it, would you still call me your friend?_

No, they wouldn't…they never would. That truth had hurt, at first. But she quickly grew used to it.

_Make your pain into your shield…then nobody can use it against you. _

The world was burning, but when her vision cleared, there was no fire…the smoke was, in fact, steam; fallen titan bodies littering the Trost district, dissolving into air.

_If I die, will I turn to smoke so easily? Or will there be pain first…will I feel it, when I die?_

The act had been difficult, at first. But it now came so naturally. The title of "Cadet" slid on as easily as a glove, the motions of acting her part as fluid and effortless as the ease with which she held a spoon. It was becoming too easy. If she wasn't careful, she could almost forget.

_But there is no forgetting. You wouldn't forget either, my comrades, if you had seen what I really am…would you?_

The world was on fire again. Inside of her this time.


End file.
